Coalition petitions Akufo-Addo over lack of working youth policy

The Voices of Youth Coalition, a youth-led advocacy platform has petitioned President Akufo-Addo over the lack of clear structures for mainstreaming youth into national policy-making.

In its petition, the platform is demanding that a new National Youth Policy is formulated to draw the concerns of young people into discussions of national development and planning.

Ghana’s population is made up of 60% youth and about 35% of the number is between the ages of 15 and 35.

The situation presents many benefits as well as challenges, with the most notable among them being high unemployment and a resultant urban poverty. Other challenges include high rural-urban migration.

While the government has indicated its preparedness to address some of these prevailing challenges, not much has been achieved.

The Voices of Youth Coalition, put together by YES-Ghana contends that the insufficient attention to youth issues in the country’s national development policy stems from the lack of a working youth policy document which will among other things empower Ghanaian youth to become “productive members of society, active citizens, and drivers of socio-economic development.”

While recognizing the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s numerous youth-targeted programs, the platform said they were uncoordinated because they were not aligned to any specific long-term goal which should be captured in the national youth policy.

“The Coalition recognizes government efforts towards youth employment, through initiatives such as National Entrepreneurship and Innovations Plan, Youth Employment Agency, Planting for Food and Jobs, Presidential Pitch, and the Nation Builders’ Corps. While these initiatives are well-intentioned, they operate in a policy vacuum, without clear direction, and with little multi-sectoral linkages. This makes it difficult to measure the contribution of these initiatives to the national development agenda. Evidently, these uncoordinated efforts have not achieved any meaningful results, almost midway through His Excellency’s tenure of office,” it said in the petition.

Although previous attempts have been made by successive governments to introduce working youth policy documents, none of them have achieved the desired results, with the last document prepared in 2010 having no bearing on current government activities.

“It is not surprising then that there is little awareness of the youth policy and scanty evidence of its implementation. No information currently exist of how the policy is being rolled out or how effective it is proving to be. This is fuelled by the non-existence of a credible youth policy action plan from the outset. Although the youth policy was launched in 2010, an action plan for its implementation was only unveiled in 2014. Thus, four years into the life of the policy, no tangible government actions could be traced to it,” the petition read.

The Voices of Youth Coalition, therefore, want a new working policy document to be worked on immediately and its roadmap for implementation publicized by the government.

“The Voices of Youth Coalition therefore urges His Excellency to urgently put in place and publish a roadmap and timelines for the formulation of a National Youth Policy, doing so in an open, all-inclusive, and youth-driven manner.”

By: Jonas Nyabor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana

Source: citifmonline.com